What Started as Banter Leads to Double Stabbing in Rochester

Rochester, MN (KROC-AM News) - Rochester Police say a long list of felony charges are pending against a Rochester man accused of stabbing and seriously wounding two men Friday night.

Interim Police John Sherwin says the incident occurred around 10 pm at a residence in the 300 block of 6th Avenue Southeast where a group of people had gathered to socialize before heading downtown. At some point, what started as some joking banter between two of the men escalated and turned into a physical fight. Sherwin says 30-year-old Aaron Swedberg apparently came out on top in the altercation and left after knocking the other man involved in the fight to the ground.

Seeing as they were neighbors and friends, Sherwin says the 27-year-old man who lost the fight went to Swedberg’s apartment intending to make an attempt at mending fences, but when he knocked on the door, Swedberg allegedly charged at him with a knife and stabbed him in the chest. A 26-year-old man, who had accompanied the 27-year-old, told police he was trying to pull his friend out of danger when he suffered a serious slash wound on one of his arms.

Sherwin says the two men then managed to exit the building and some friends gave the man with the chest wound a ride to St. Marys Hospital. On the way there, he became unresponsive but Sherwin says he is expected to recover after undergoing emergency surgery. The officers sent to investigate reports of a stabbing at the residence learned the second victim had run to a nearby convenience store where someone had applied a tourniquet after seeing the man, as Sherwin put it, “spurting blood like a sprinkler.”

The officers found Swedberg in his apartment, along with a knife covered with blood. He was immediately arrested and is being held on felony assault and other charges in the Olmsted County Jail.

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